5 Psychological Elements of Problem Solving

If you know how to serve people by solving a problem, you will always be employed by others or for yourself.

Empathy

Having the ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes is the most important aspect of solving a problem for someone other than yourself. It is easy to solve a problem for yourself because you have a superior understanding of yourself and how your paradigm operates.

When you empathize with others, you feel what they feel. It is as if you have absorbed every feeling they may have.

When this happens, you can identify the pain points of the problem because you now have inserted your real-life experience into the equation.

2. Active Listening

Innately, people are bad at listening. Hardwired in our brains are unconscious biases. This leads many to listen with the intent to respond and not the intent to gather all of the information needed to conclude.

Active listening starts in the mind because having an open mind will clear out any preconceived notions about the potential problem.

It takes intense focus and mental energy to actively listen. This is because people have the attention span of a toddler. To avoid mental burnout, repeat the talking points back to the person you are listening to. This helps mentally register what is being said and it also helps gain clarity about the problem.

3. Analyzing Patterns

Sometimes problem-solving takes time. When you can’t conclude in the present moment, it is best to step back and gather data. Getting to the root of the problem requires finding out the seeds that planted them. You can achieve this by analyzing patterns.

By analyzing patterns, you can locate and separate what’s consistent and what isn’t consistent.

By identifying the inconsistencies, this is where you can make small adjustments. Each small adjustment leads down the road to a solution for more complex problems. This feedback is a manual or guide to experiment with by using all of the information that you analyzed.

4. Leadership

Leadership is a missing component of problem-solving. It often goes overlooked because it isn’t just about the customer or client you are trying to solve the problem for. It is about you and your personal development. Leaders help solve problems. They solve them by being calm in the face of adversity.

When you find yourself helping someone with a problem, you are in a position of power because you are being looked at as the expert.

The expert can’t be seen panicking when problems are a bit more complex. People reciprocate the energy you put off. Some problems will have a sense of urgency that will require having a bit of stoicism and patience for everyone’s best interest.

5. Social Awareness

If you can relate to people, they will become more adept at listening to your suggestions to resolve the problem.

Look at it as a social seducing skill. This is where having human conversations and human connections come into play. This requires having a sense of social awareness. An example would be communication style. When I worked for an airline, I helped passengers from all over the world. Each passenger had a different background. I would gather this information by building a rapport. Based on the information I had, I altered my communication style and tailored it to each customer. This increased my likeability factor which increased my ability to solve the problem.

Whatever industry or niche you are in, the name of the game is problem-solving. Problem-solving is a mental game.